Can carbon cycle geoengineering be a useful complement to ambitious climate mitigation?

Abstract

Any human intervention in environmental systems carries risk of adverse consequences. Planetary-scale intervention carries the potential for planetary-scale risk. Continued emissions of greenhouse gases represent an unintentional planetary-scale human intervention in the climate system, which is resulting in global consequences that will become increasingly harmful to both human and environmental systems. The most appropriate response to this problem is to decrease the level of overall human intervention in the climate system by decreasing greenhouse gas emissions. However, owing to the slow progress of mitigation efforts, many scientists are starting to suggest alternate climate interventions as a strategy to decrease or avert some of the anticipated impacts of global warming. In this review, I will consider the role of some forms of climate intervention - those aimed at accelerating the slow natural removal of atmospheric CO2 - as possible complements to aggressive mitigation policy, for the purpose of expanding the range of attainable long-term climate targets. © 2010 Future Science Ltd.